Hand wiping roll towels for use in public lavatories are well known. Such roll towels typically are mounted in a wall hanging cabinet having supply and take-up rolls such that the user can pull down a clean, unused segment of the towel from the supply roll with the previously used segment of the towel being conveyed back to the take-up roll. In the past, such towels have typically been formed primarily of cotton so as to provide the user with the absorbency and texture benefits of such a product.
Roll towels are typically formed from woven fabric structures as are well known to those of skill in the art. The fabric which is formed is thereafter typically sealed at the edges by sewing and then shipped in roll form to rental laundries. In practice, these laundries install clean towels and reclaim soiled towels for cleaning and reuse. The length of such fabric segments is generally in the range of about 21 meters.
As will be appreciated, at times it is necessary to splice segments of material together to form a complete length for use in a roll towel application. More significantly, once the roll towel is in actual use, it may be necessary to cut out damaged or stained portions of the towels and splice the remainder back together. This is particularly true since the towels undergo multiple uses in between which they are washed and inspected. In prior practice, such splicing was generally accomplished by means of standard sewn seams traversing the width of the fabric. While such sewn seams are extremely strong, they are generally considered to be aesthetically unpleasing since the towel tends to take on a dog-bone profile in the vicinity of the seam. This is particularly true once a number of sections of the roll towel material have been cut and spliced back together.
In light of the above, it would be advantageous to have a roll towel wherein a strong, spliced seam may be formed by means other than a standard sewing procedure. The present invention provides such a roll towel and method for forming a splice therein wherein the spliced seam is formed by a patterned ultrasonic bond disposed across the width of the roll towel.